Well Fed On the Town

I think I have a pretty good argument against chain restaurants.

All in all, there really is nothing wrong with chain restaurants, per se, but I think most people agree that they lack something.  Call it heart, call it oomph, but true excellence rarely emerges from the corporate restaurant where consistency is king.

Make no mistake about it, consistency is the most often stated reason why chain restaurants prosper.  People go to a Chili’s or a Chipotle or a Cheesecake Factory because, while the food is good, they know what to expect.  It is human nature to find something comfortable in the familiar.

Still, I am not so sure restaurant chains are all that consistent.  During my travels, I have found little consistency in menu selection, service, or quality of food from one place to the next, especially not across geographical regions.  For instance, the best meal I ever had at an IHOP (which I ate on a business trip to Chicago…don’t ask), the machaca breakfast burrito, is not available in Kansas City where I live.  The service was just as poor as in KC, though.

Qdboa, a staple of many of my trips to St. Louis, went out of business in Kansas City because the service was so bad.  In addition, their restaurant in downtown Indianapolis is very hit or miss.

Still, the lack of consistency was never highlighted more than when I ate at the El Maguey in Columbia, Missouri.  For those not hip on Missouri Mexican chains, El Maguey stretches the state and serves really affordable, good Mexican food.  My wife and I eat at their location in Blue Springs, MO often, but we got to eat at the location in Columbia right after.

I have never had cause to complain about the food at the Blue Springs El Maguey, but for some reason, the food at the Columbia El Maguey was astronomically better.  There was no comparison.  It was so much better that had I first eaten in Columbia and then gone to Blue Springs, I would have been sorely disappointed.

Which leads me back full circle to the argument against chain restaurants.  I have discussed three chains: two national and one local that have wild variances in their ability to execute a good meal.  It would appear that I am just as likely to get good or bad food in a chain as I am in a non-chain; however, I am far less likely to get the chef’s absolute best in a standard corporate restaurant.  There is a whole risk/reward thing that to my mind seems to point strongly towards going to a local, non-corporate joint.

Again, I think chain dining has its place.  There are days when a Chipotle burrito, not a locally owned place’s burrito, just sounds good.  I still love Qdoba.  Yet, after really thinking about it, I need to ferret out the locally owned place more often.  Yes, sometimes it will not be as good as the chain down the street, but more often than not, I should going to find something amazing.

Photo from Qdoba.com.